Sunday, June 22, 2008

It has been a busy week of getting back into a routine since returning from vacation. It was such a wonderful and relaxing time. I grew up camping there much of my childhood, and in fact it was during a camping trip there that Jason arrived to suprise me, and then later proposed from the top of Lookout Mountain. So, as we sat at the same camp site we had been in as an 18 and 20 year old and watched our FOUR KIDS play, to say it was surreal would be a bit of an understatement. It was just one of those really great, special times that I know our family will always remember fondly.

I also realized that I had not filled you in on the G news. I think the last time I spoke about him we had him on his meds and he was doing pretty well. Well, shortly after he began to struggle again - 30 to 40 minute rages. At his next appointment with the psychiatrist she wanted us to try a new med. When we got out to the car Jason asked me to please not fill the presciption until he prayed first. And so we both went away and prayed, and we both felt that the med was not the way to go. Atleast not right now. We are (obviously) not opposed to meds, but we both realized we had jumped into it in a moment of weakness and perhaps even desperation, and that we needed to seek the Lord BEFORE we made anymore decisions. So he has now been med free for a little over a month and he is doing better than ever. What's changed? Well, we have committed to pray for him EVERY night, which means sometimes I am about to doze off and Jason wakes me and says, "we forgot to pray for G." We have also reinstated the family devotion time, which we had put to the side. And I think in general we are responding to him in a much more loving way. It is hard to describe what year after year with a very difficult child does to you. You become hyper alert, hyper sensitive, and completely depleted of empathy. For me it has been a process of trying to see how he is struggling and to respond to him from a place of love and compassion instead of judgement. It is a process and I don't always get it right, but I really feel the Lord beginning to heal the hurt in both of us. I can see G beginning to relax more, to feel more comfortable in his own skin, and I sense that he can feel the change in me as well. I pray God continues to fill me with his love so that I can continue to pour it out to G. It is a daily balance of expecting him to do his best, but not expecting him to be perfect, of hoping he will be happy, but being ready to be with him in his pain if he is not. And yet again God is using this child to teach me so much. He may be my greatest challenge, but he is also my greatest blessing.